Today, I bring you the story of Toldo, a cat in Montagnana, in northern Italy, who daily brings little presents to his late master’s grave.

Town of Montagnana as viewed from Castello di San Zeno

As reported by Agence France-Presse on January 4, 2013, the story of a cat named Toldo who visits his master’s tomb and brings him little presents on an almost daily basis a year after the man’s death has moved the inhabitants of Montagnana, a mountain village in Italy.

Renzo Iozzelli’s widow Ada told AFP on Friday from Montagnana that Toldo “brings little twigs, leaves, toothpicks, plastic cups. A bit of everything really. Sometimes he comes with me and sometimes he goes on his own. The whole town knows about him now!”

Toldo, a grey-and-white three-year-old tomcat, followed Iozzelli’s funeral procession last year and has continued going to the cemetery ever since, a habit usually ascribed to dogs.

Ada said: “He loved my husband. It was something else! Now it’s just me, my daughter and my son-in-law and he’s very affectionate with us too.” But the journey to and from the cemetery each day had tired Toldo out in the cold winter weather. “He’s not going out so much these days. He’s caught a bit of bronchitis so he’s sleeping next to me.”

The next morning, Ada went to the grave again: “We went to the cemetery with my daughter and found a sprig of acacia on the grave. I immediately thought that it was the cat, but my daughter was convinced that I was just in a very emotional state at that moment.”

Ada says that her late husband shared a particularly strong bond with Toldo, having adopted Toldo from a stray cat colony when he was just 3 months old. “My husband was very affectionate with him. Renzo loved animals. It’s almost as if Toldo would be grateful. He is a special cat, one can not help liking him. ”

But not everyone believes in the sanctity of the relationship between Toldo and his owner. Ada told La Nazione that people often try to shoo the cat away: “There are insensitive people who send him away with stones or other things, convinced that the presence of an animal in the cemetery is almost a desecration.”